Lockland Elementary School, which hosted this 2011 presentation on the 9/11 attacks, has been downgraded from Continuous Improvement to Academic Watch. / Enquirer file photo

Written by

Jessica Brown and Paul E. Kostyu

LOCKLAND DOWNGRADED

The Ohio Department of Education found that the Lockland Local School district filed false attendance data for 36 students to artificially inflate its academic rating for the 2010-11 school year. The state has now added those students back to its calculations resulting in: • The district rating dropping from “Effective” to “Continuous Improvement” and the district no longer being rated as meeting the federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standard. Lockland is now labeled as an “At-Risk” district. • The rating for Lockland Elementary School dropping from “Continuous Improvement” to “Academic Watch.” The school is no longer rated as meeting the federal AYP standards and is now labeled as an “At-Risk” school. • The creation of a report card for the Arlington Heights Academy, a 9-12 alternative school which previously did not have enough reported students to generate a rating. The school is now rated “Continuous Improvement.” • A reduction in the Performance Index scores and number of state indicators met for Lockland High School and Lockland Middle School. Their school report card ratings are unchanged. Lockland’s report cards were marked as “Under Review” on the ODE website last year pending the outcome of the investigation.

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COLUMBUS — Lockland schools falsely eliminated 36 low-scoring students from its rolls in an effort to improve its state report card, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

As a result, the state has now reduced the district's academic standing and sanctions may be filed against staff.

The downgrade is the result of a year-long investigation into allegations that the district had provided false data to the state. Lockland reported the students withdrew to go to other schools, then re-enrolled later that year. If a student withdraws, their test scores don’t count against the district. But the state says the students were there the entire time.

“The district offered no proof,” said John Charlton, a spokesman for the ODE. “They claimed they went to other schools.”

District officials referred a reporter to a prepared statement, which declined comment.

District attorney David Lampe, speaking on behalf of the district, said “the Board of Education has not yet had an opportunity to thoroughly review and analyze ODE’s findings. As such, the District has no further comment at this time.”

The district’s rating for 2010-11 will fall from Effective to Continuous Improvement, while Lockland Elementary School will go from Continuous Improvement to Academic Watch. The district's alternative school, Arlington Heights Academy, was not rated before, but will now be rated Continuous Improvement.

As a result of the changes, Lockland is now labeled an “at risk” district. If it continues to perform poorly, it will have to notify parents and eventually could be subject to drastic restructuring.

The state also referred the matter to the department’s Professional Conduct office to determine whether workers participated in “conduct unbecoming to the teaching profession,” the ODE said in a news release. The department could levy professional conduct sanctions, including permanent revocation of an educator’s license.

The department does have the authority to fine districts, but that option was not discussed in this case, Charlton said.

State Superintendent of Education Stan Heffner had stern words for the district.

“This was not done to help students but to help adults, and that’s a case of misplaced priorities,” said Heffner in a news release.

“Integrity and accuracy in Ohio’s education accountability system is essential if schools are to fully serve students and earn the trust of parents, the public and taxpayers. Dishonest actions like these may inflate results but are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

Four Ohio schools were downgraded in the past two years after state investigations found students or teachers had cheated on state tests, Charlton said. He knows of no other districts currently under investigation.

Charlton said the 36 Lockland students were spread across the academy, elementary, middle and high schools, but the ratings of the middle and high schools were not affected. The high school was rated Excellent. The middle school was rated Effective. Lockland had 632 students enrolled last year.

The Ohio Report Card is an annual measure of schools’ and districts' academic success. The Ohio Department of Education combines students’ scores on standardized achievement tests with other factors, such as graduation rate and attendance, to rate every public school and district.

The report card is important because it is generally how parents and communities judge the quality of their schools.

This is the latest attendance scandal to rock an Ohio school district. Columbus City Schools is under investigation after the Columbus Dispatch reported that district records showed 2.8 million instances of student absences that were erased over the past two and a half years.

Toledo Public Schools also is being investigated by the state for manipulating attendance data to make its test scores look better, according to the news website State Impact Ohio.

The Toledo Blade reported the superintendent admitted the district had retroactively withdrawn and re-enrolled chronically absent students so their test scores wouldn’t count against the district on its report card. The practice is referred to as scrubbing.

Ohio law allows districts to throw out test scores of students who are not continuously enrolled between late October and the testing dates in the spring. But the problem arises when districts retroactively manipulate that data to make their scores look better.

The multiple investigations indicate there is a problem with the system, said Piet van Lier of the Columbus-based research group Policy Matters Ohio.

“My initial reaction is this is the pressure of high-stakes testing,” he said. “That doesn’t mean people should cheat, but it’s a flawed system and we should re-think how we can create better measures. We need a different approach.”